Woohoo! I got new shoes. Repeated watchings of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy convinced me that I needed to start putting some class into my wardrobe. First on the agenda: a couple pairs of new shoes. Yesterday, Erika and I went down to DSW, a big shoe store on Westheimer, and examined their mens’ department. Out of it all, I only found a couple pairs that were decent, and they didn’t have any left in my size.

We decided to head back to the Galleria and give Kenneth Cole a shot. I don’t know much about men’s shoes, other than how to tell the qualities of different shoe leathers, but I’d always liked Kenneth Cole watches, so it seemed like a good idea. Sure enough, they had a handful of pairs that I’d have been quite content to go home with. We narrowed it down to a formal black pair and a more casual brown suede pair, and I picked the suede pair. It’s the most I’ve ever spent on shoes ($115), but they’re gorgeous, and I love them. I had no idea it was possible to love shoes, but I love these shoes, and already it makes me want to buy nicer clothes.

The magical new shoes even offset the fact that I lost the Windows installation on my desktop again. That’s the second time in a week. This instance appears to have resulted from me trying to use a Dell Perc 2/DC raid card in my Optiplex desktop running Windows XP, which is way, way, way unsupported. I swear, I’ve learned my lesson: from here on out, I’m never building another desktop machine by hand again. The money you save isn’t worth the time you lose. Buy a decent desktop from a manufacturer, use supported hardware, and things work peachy keen.

I can see why people love Macs: after all, they seem more reliable because the hardware and software are all controlled by the same people. The majority of system problems I have under Windows is driver-related: cheap software that undermines good hardware and a good operating system.